Roberts: Blame DCS for boy's death? Sorry, but no

It’s a tragedy that defies explanation. A young mother strangles her hospitalized child in the middle of the night, then kills herself.

Her father can explain it. Basically, he says, it’s the fault of the state Department of Child Safety.

Shannon Griffith told reporters that his 27-year-old daughter, Lola “Tami” Griffith, was afraid DCS workers would put her five-year-old son, Helious, into foster care, where he’d be abused or neglected.

"She was not the type of person who would kill her son just because she wanted to,” Griffith said. "It was her last resort to protect her child. She probably thought she had no other choice or no other way to protect her child and the abuse the state can cause."

So rather than risk the possibility of her child going into foster care – something that wasn’t the plan -- she decided he’d be better off dead?

Sorry, not buying it.

Nobody has been more critical of Arizona’s child-welfare agency than me. Over the years, I’ve seen this agency fail to come to the aid of children who desperately needed help and I’ve seen it take away children who didn’t need state intervention.

This time, it appears DCS was doing exactly what we expect, which is to do what it can to ensure that a defenseless child is safe.

According to DCS, there had been four reports of abuse or neglect of Helious, who had cerebral palsy and developmental disabilities. The first three reports were unsubstantiated.

The fourth report, on Sept. 28, involved a complaint that the child was living in squalor. DCS found the home to be cluttered though not unsafe. But an investigator had concerns that the boy was underweight and asked that he been seen by a pediatrician.

An unreasonable request? I don’t think so.

A month later, Tami Griffith took her son to the doctor, who immediately hospitalized the boy.

DCS determined that the child’s condition was the result of both his medical condition and neglect and on Nov. 5, decided to file a dependency petition to take legal custody of the boy. According to DCS, the plan was to leave the boy in his own home, with his mother, but to monitor his progress to ensure he got the help he needed once released from the hospital.

It never got the chance. Sometime before 2 a.m. on Saturday, Tami Griffith strangled her own son as he lay in his hospital bed then shot and killed herself.

DCS is far from perfect, as has been demonstrated again and again and tragically,yet again down the years. But most of the time, DCS workers are just trying to do what they can for the best of reasons: to protect the most vulnerable among us.

The death of Helious Griffith is a tragedy but DCS-as-scapegoat isn’t the story here. Maybe mental illness was at play. Maybe something else.

But one thing is clear: the last resort to protecting your child is to protect your child and the one who fell far short here? Well, it wasn''t DCS.